8 – 9 June 
Durham University
The Critical Politics of Resilience
Greece has found itself in recent years at the epicentre of Europe’s unsolved political dilemmas on citizenship and emerged as a kind of proxy for EU’s failure to safeguard the rights of asylum seekers. At the same time, the Greek public is torn by heated debates over gender and sexuality rights, and issues of diversity and inclusion that have been accentuated by a series of harsh austerity measures. The workshop will document how critical events are survived by resilient subjects who attempt to resist resilient institutions and structures of asymmetrical power relations. This interdisciplinary event aims at bringing together scholars from social sciences and the humanities in order to debate the relevance of resilience as an expression of political resistance. Rather than viewing resilience as single-handedly positive however, we also wish to reflect upon the dark side of resilience as this is manifested in the form of institutions, structures and discourses that remain resistant to change. Through the concept of resilience, we will pay close attention to contradicting visions of citizenship: exclusionary, nationalist and homophobic ones, but also inclusionist and cosmopolitan. Resilience against homophobia and transphobia will be explored alongside resilience to austerity measures, non-citizenship and the paradigm of Fortress Europe. The focus will be both at an individual level, but also at a structural one, including both resilient structures of inclusion (families and solidarity initiatives), but also resilient structures of exclusion (nationalism and religion).
Venue – Friday 8 June: Calman Centre (CLC 202, Rosemary Cramp Lecture Theatre)
Venue – Saturday 9 June: Dawson Building (D104, Anthropology Seminar Room)
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Sponsored by IHRR – Durham University
Supported by Durham Anthropology & Durham Global Security Institute
Documenting Resilience Debating Resilience 